I was in "Dahntahn" today just getting shots of the buildings and construction taking place around town to try and improve its image. As I was walking along Blvd of the Allies, I happened to look up and I saw an unusual plane appearing to make an approach into PIT. About a half an hour later, the plane circled again. It circled PIT and flew over downtown at least 4 or 5 times today. I tried to get a pic of this plane, but i think it disappeared behind a building just as the shutter clicked... Anyway, this plane looked like a wide-bodied plane. It had 4 engines (it was not a 747, and its color and apperance did not look like a military use, given that there is an A.F.B at PIT as well) and was solid white but had a bit of a red stripe going up its tail fin... Does anyone know what kind of a plane this was and what it was doing in PIT today?

Do not bring stranger girt into your room. The stranger girt is dangerous, it will hurt your life.

Then that would be a military aircraft. Come to think of it, they did say that they were going to expand the air force base that is out there to handle up to 8 more of those aircraft. I doubt that they would have started with deliveries of those planes though... I suppose it was probably some military exercise. Still, it was rather odd to see a plane that big circling over downtown... It, or they, were up circling for roughly 3 or 4 hours. I noticed it at about 11:10am local time here. I left the downtown/Oakland area around 3 this afternoon...

I was looking at my pics on the digital camera, and it turns out that I did, in fact, get a picture of that bird just before disappearing over the US Steelworkers Building, but it was a bad shot; I was not zoomed in, so the plane looks too far away...

Do not bring stranger girt into your room. The stranger girt is dangerous, it will hurt your life.

It looked similar to the 747 wing (I guess a swept wing), but it was not a 747. I know what a 747 sounded like as it flew over downtown on approach to PIT when BA served the area... I could not get a good enough look at the wing regarding its height, it looked high though; the engines were hanging rather low below the wings...

Do not bring stranger girt into your room. The stranger girt is dangerous, it will hurt your life.

Thanks, I took your advise and went onto liveatc.net and pulled up the PIT ATC recordings from 11am to 1130 this morning, and there was a holding pattern but for a military 757... They mentioned an airbus aircraft, and it sounded like one of the pilots for one of the aircraft had a minor middle eastern accent... I dunno...

Do not bring stranger girt into your room. The stranger girt is dangerous, it will hurt your life.

Quoting Steeler83 (Reply 6):I know what a 747 sounded like as it flew over downtown on approach to PIT when BA served the area

[sigh] I remember being at a Steelers game in 2003 and watching a US A330 north of Heinz Field gently floating down on approach to 28R, inbound from FRA (or was it LGW?). It was nice seeing those around the airport...

Quoting N670UW (Reply 10):I remember being at a Steelers game in 2003 and watching a US A330 north of Heinz Field gently floating down on approach to 28R, inbound from FRA (or was it LGW?). It was nice seeing those around the airport...

I didn't think PIT ever had one of those birds in town... Well, I thought wrong...

Do not bring stranger girt into your room. The stranger girt is dangerous, it will hurt your life.

PIT used to have multiple 767 flights per day from numerous places including PHL, CLT, LAX, SFO, CDG, LGW, and FRA. A-330 service to LGW and FRA was around for a few years. Infact, the 2nd ever US Airways route to have the A-330 assigned to it was PIT-FRA. (The first route was PHL-FRA).

As for odd planes at PIT, I have my own question. I swore I saw an Air Luxor A-320 at the US Airways hangars this Wednesday. Anyone know anything more or was I simply seeing things?

Quoting Steeler83 (Reply 7):Thanks, I took your advise and went onto liveatc.net and pulled up the PIT ATC recordings from 11am to 1130 this morning, and there was a holding pattern but for a military 757... They mentioned an airbus aircraft, and it sounded like one of the pilots for one of the aircraft had a minor middle eastern accent... I dunno...

Sounds like it could have been the Turkish Airlines A-340 bound for ORD.